When a rash has two names: pese sorcery and kisigo spirits at Lake Tanganyika

ABSTRACT

This explorative and qualitative study, based on 27 interviews during two months of fieldwork, describes pese, an affliction of the skin that has conspicuously stayed under the radar of medico-anthropological research in Kigoma, a rural city in the northwest Tanzania. The condition reminds of a locally better known condition labeled kisigo, raising the question why two concepts of the same affliction exist side by side. It seems indicative that the two illness concepts stem from different cultures and that each specializes in an explanatory model: the former witchcraft (sorcery) and the latter spirit possession. Moreover, a symbiotic relation seems to exist between the healing traditions of the Bembe and the Ha. Government policies prohibiting witchcraft and targeting traditional healers seem to have created a situation where witchcraft practices and beliefs have come to represent the periphery and survive there, clandestinely.

KEYWORDS:

• Skin
• illness construction
• witchcraft
• medical anthropology
• Kigoma
• governance

Ethical approval

The fieldwork for this study was conducted within the framework of collaboration with the NGO Fracarita in Kigoma, which ensured independent and impartial research. All participants voluntarily participated after they were informed about the purpose of the research. Their confidentiality and anonymity has been guaranteed.

Acknowledgments

This paper would not have been possible without the traditional healers and clients in Kigoma who made time for the interviews. We also want to thank the staff of Maweni Hospital. We are grateful to Deo Baribwegure for his guidance in the search of respondents during the fieldwork in Kigoma. We want to thank the two local translators Elie Mwamba and Alan Matafwali for expertise and perseverance. Special thanks go to Ernest Nshemezimana for his excellent work as transcriber. Finally, we wish to thank the Brothers of Charity for their support in search for accommodation during the fieldwork in Kigoma. The research was financed and ethically approved through the Special Research Fund of Ghent University (BOF). Two valuable references were provided by two reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Witchcraft and sorcery are used interchangeably in this paper to refer to the same phenomenon, i.e. the deliberate human act through medicines, spirits and magic to harm others out of envy, greed, self-enrichment, anger or other antisocial feelings. Witchcraft discourse covers stories of success, failure and inequality.

2. Onchocerciasis is a parasitic disease caused by filarial worm. It can cause a variety of conditions, including blindness, skin rashes, lesions, intense itching and skin depigmentation. It is commonly known as ‘river blindness’ (WHO 2017).

3. The names of patients and healers are fictive.

4. Scabies is defined by the WHO as ‘a contagious skin infection that spreads rapidly in crowded conditions and is found worldwide. The principal sign of the disease is a pimple-like rash. Scratching of itchy areas results in sores that may become infected by bacteria’ (WHO 2013).

5. As Green et al. (2005) mention, ‘dealing with witchcraft is encompassed by traditional healing because of the role of divination in diagnosing witchcraft attack, because such attacks often manifest themselves in illness, and because of the relationship between healing and power’.

Additional information

Funding

Special Research Fund of Ghent University (BOF).